OUR LADY OF THE ASSUMPTION
A superb church in Romanesque, Gothic and Art Nouveau styles, with a magnificent organ and marble high altar, in Bougival
This beautiful Romanesque church, built in the early 12th century, has undergone several transformations over the centuries. Today, it features a clever blend of Romanesque, Gothic and Art Nouveau styles. The interior features a 17th-century altar carved in gilded wood; two well-preserved 12th-century capitals at the entrance to the choir, decorated with fantastic carved animals; a 16th-century baptismal font with plant motifs; Art Nouveau mosaics in the south aisle; and a superb gilded oak altarpiece, thought to have come from the chapel of the Château de la Chaussée (destroyed in the 19th century). The church was also the final resting place of Rennequin Sualem, builder of the Machine de Marly, who was buried in the choir in 1708. At the end of the 19th century, the church's 12th-century bell tower threatened to collapse, and Lucien Magne (one of the architects of the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre and a pupil of the famous architect Viollet-le-Duc) was commissioned to restore it. The foundations were reinforced with concrete and cement inclusions, notably to rebalance the bell tower. In 1945, the parish acquired a magnificent 1,216-pipe organ by the great organ builder Cavaillé-Coll, completed in 1905 and previously owned by the Paris Protestant Consistory. The old Carrara marble high altar was renovated in 2009.
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